Adirondack Park’s wildest lands caught in debate over access

Disability advocates seek a compromise to state’s proposal introducing motorized vehicles to wilderness

By Gwendolyn Craig

The Adirondack Park’s wildest places could become more accessible for people with disabilities.

But based on proposed regulatory changes governing use of public lands in the park, interpretations of accessibility may clash with wilderness.

Persons in the disabled community, environmental groups and retired state staff feel a proposal as written could lead to all-terrain vehicles driving through forest untouched by a motor vehicle in more than 50 years.

State regulations do not allow motorized access in areas classified as wilderness, primitive and canoe in the park, which represents more than 1.2 million of the approximately 2.6 million acres of forest preserve. 

A proposal by the Adirondack Park Agency to its policy document governing the forest preserve could change that.

Jason Thurston, outreach coordinator for John Dillon Park, an accessible campground between Tupper Lake and Long Lake, is thrilled that the state is looking to improve accessibility through the amendment process to the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation has struggled to make recreational opportunities available for people with disabilities in the Adirondack Park, including most recently at Great Camp Santanoni in the town of Newcomb.

A settlement reached after a lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) stipulated the Adirondack Great Camp would be made accessible, but the state has had limited success honoring that term. 

The state classified the 5-mile road to the camp in such a way that motorized vehicles are not allowed, making access for those with mobility limitations a challenge. The state has tried horse and wagons and now electric mobility devices to address the issue.

“The solution they came up with for Santanoni does not include me,” said Thurston, who is a quadripelgic. “I just want equal (access). I don’t want more than. … I want some solution where I can access more of the wilderness, and I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

The APA, which oversees public and private development in the park and dictates what the DEC can and cannot do in forest preserve lands, is spearheading the policy document updates.

Disability advocates and environmentalists worry, however, that the changes as proposed go too far and effectively break one of the core tenets of the document first drafted in 1972.

“We don’t think Gov. (Kathy) Hochul will want to go down and have her legacy being the first governor to weaken the wilderness guidelines and wilderness protection in New York state,” said David Gibson, managing partner of Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve.

Thurston is also concerned with the environment and what the proposal as written could do. The forest preserve and the natural resource protections it’s afforded are some of the reasons he lives in the park, he said.

The DEC, however, disagrees with groups’ concerns. In a statement provided after this story posted online, the department said “proposed amendments do not change DEC’s established process to carefully consider state environmental protections” through an accommodation program it has administered since 2011.

State officials, required to review the master plan every five years, last updated it in  2019.

The amendments are out for public comment until Dec. 2. The agency could make changes before sharing the final draft with the APA board. Should the APA board approve it, the changes would go to Hochul for her signature.

More access than wheelchairs

State regulations only allow a human-powered wheelchair for people with disabilities recreating in wilderness, primitive and canoe areas. Thurston said such chairs are more suited for indoor mobility and are hardly practicable for navigating the outdoors. It’s also not an option for some.

Thurston needs a power wheelchair to get around. There are very few places in the park’s forest preserve that he can go, even in other land classifications where the state permits some motorized access.

One amendment to the master plan includes the addition of other power-driven mobility devices (OPDMDs). 

The ADA’s definition of OPDMD’s is “any mobility device powered by batteries, fuel, or other engines…that is used by individuals with mobility disabilities for the purpose of locomotion, including golf cars, electronic personal mobility devices…such as the Segway PT, or any mobility device designed to operate in areas without defined pedestrian routes, but that is not a wheelchair.”

The APA separated OPDMDs from the definition of motor vehicles, which some say  opens the DEC to allow things like golf carts, ATVs and Segways in these most protected park lands.

Disability rights are about providing equality, and using the full definition of OPDMDs in the case of the master plan sounds more than equal, Thurston said.

He wants the state to provide more access to the forest preserve than indoor wheelchairs, but he’d like the definition of OPDMDs narrowed in the master plan.

“Just because we want to be able to go places that everybody else can go, doesn’t mean we need four wheelers to do it,” Thurston said. “I just want equal.”

The APA did not consult the APA/DEC Accessibility Advisory Committee about the proposed changes, said Thurston, chairman of the committee. The committee of 15 met on Wednesday and is still working out a position on the amendments.

The committee is enthusiastic that the state is looking to expand access, but it seeks a balance of protecting the environment, Thurston said.

It is considering ideas including limits on what kinds of mobility devices the state might allow. For example, Thurston said, it may recommend prohibiting gas-powered vehicles or high-speed mobility devices.

The DEC currently has a program that allows for OPDMD use “on a case-by-case basis” through an application process. The application must comply with the state’s “laws, rules and regulations regarding public motor vehicle use on DEC’s outdoor lands,” which would include the master plan, the state constitution and federal regulations. The DEC said it considers type, size, weight, speed, design and other factors, too.

Thurston said most people with disabilities do not know the application system exists, and it’s a cumbersome process. The DEC has told him it issues only a handful of permits a year.

Walter Linck, who worked for two decades on natural resource planning for the APA until he retired in June 2021, pointed to other states like California and Minnesota that have implemented successful accessibility programs while maintaining wilderness. He is critical of the state’s plans to consider OPDMDs different from motor vehicles.

“All DEC wants to do is give them a combination lock or throw them keys to a lock, open up the gate to a road and say ‘go have fun,’” Linck said.

An end to wilderness?

Multiple environmental groups have testified at public hearings and in comment letters to the agency about the mobile device issue. Most are alarmed over the change and warn of potential negative consequences. The accessibility proposal, combined with other amendments removing DEC deadlines, had some groups accusing the agency of giving up its oversight of the DEC.

When the state acquires new forest preserve lands, it has three years to remove non-conforming structures using motorized equipment. The DEC has been in trouble with the APA as recently as last year for breaking that rule. One of the master plan amendments removes those deadlines.

“It appears that through these amendments, the agency is seeking to limit its own authority,” said Jackie Bowen, conservation director for the Adirondack Council, at a public hearing.

Claudia Braymer, deputy director of Protect the Adirondacks, said the OPDMD proposed language gives “DEC unfettered discretion to fundamentally alter the nature of wilderness, primitive and canoe areas.” If the agency does that, she said, it “would be a complete abrogation of APA duties to protect the natural resources of the Adirondack Park.”

In presentations, APA and DEC staff have referenced the ADA and the federal Department of Justice’s regulations, noting that they “are in place to ensure that state and local governments do not discriminate against persons with disabilities.”

Environmental groups do not believe the federal laws require such a change. They see it as the state’s choice to weaken its natural resource protections.

Cathy Pedler, director of advocacy at the Adirondack Mountain Club, testified that ADA regulations allow public entities to make exemptions from compliance if modifications “would fundamentally alter the nature of the service program or activity. OPDMD use as a motor vehicle use would fundamentally destroy the land classification program of wilderness.”

Linck called the changes a “level of absurdity” that was “either sloppy miscalculation or nefariousness.”

Compromises

Jerry Delaney, executive director of the Adirondack Local Government Review Board, is disappointed with such reactions. The message he thinks their testimony sends to disability advocates is “you should be happy with what you got,” he said.

During his Albany testimony, Delaney said the review board “is unified in being happy about access for the disabled.”

One environmental organization appears open to some change.

Peter Nelson, co-founder of Adirondack Wilderness Advocates, said the APA should remove OPDMDs, but the organization is receptive to allowing battery-powered wheelchairs.

“There’s got to be a way to compromise,” Thurston said. 

Top photo: DEC/APA Accessibility Advisory Committee member Scott Remington rides quadracycle at Great Camp Santanoni. Explorer file photo

Editor’s note: This story was updated with information from the DEC sent to the Explorer on Nov. 11 from an inquiry sent on Oct. 31. This story was also updated to clarify Adirondack Wilderness Advocates’ position.